Footnotes

The Act of Appeals

All legal matters in England, secular and religious, were
brought under the King's jurisdiction alone. Henry's divorce
could be settled without recourse to a foreign court, but the
resulting confusion between religious and secular authority
plagued his successors. Henry was excommunicated.

The First Act of Supremacy

The King denied all papal authority and was recognized as the
supreme head of the Church of England. The Act assumed that
English monarchs had always held this authority, and that it
had merely been usurped by the Pope. The Church remained
Catholic, but the Pope was no longer its head. Henceforth,
the English monarch had full powers to determine Church
doctrine and to appoint officials.

The Treason Act

It was declared treason to speak against the Act of
Supremacy, accuse the king of heresy, or deprive his heirs of
their rightful authority over the Church.

The Acts of Uniformity

Under Edward VI, there were two Acts of Uniformity:

1: (1549) Archbishop
Cranmer's first Book of
Common Prayer was used to standardize Anglican worship
along Protestant lines, but left certain areas of doctrine
ambiguous (concerning the Eucharist, for example); radicals
were disappointed and Catholics found it offensive. Authority
to change Church doctrine passed unnoticed into the hands of
Parliament by this precedent.

2: (1552) A revised version of the
Prayer Book was adopted; it rejected the doctrine of
transubstantiation--the worship of bread and wine as the body
and blood of Christ--and thus altered the ritual of
communion. Clerical marriage became legal, church plate was
confiscated and ritual images began to be removed or
destroyed (iconoclasm).

The Statutes of Repeal

The Reformation was temporarily reversed, with the repeal of
all prior legislation and the reestablishment of the Pope as
head of the English Church.

The Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity

Control of the Church was restored to the monarchy and the
second Prayer Book was adopted with revisions
agreeable to moderates: the Black Rubric was removed, leaving
the ritual of the Eucharist ambiguous, and Catholic Church
ornaments were reinstalled.

Attendance at church on Sundays was mandatory and
"recusants"--those who failed to attend--were subject to a
shilling fine per absence. (Both Shakespeare's
father and his daughter were
forced to pay fines for recusancy.) Oaths had to be sworn to
uphold both Acts, and bishops who refused to do so were
deprived of their positions.

The Black Rubric

The notorious Black Rubric was a clause clearly stipulating
that the sacramental bread and wine were not to be worshipped
as the flesh and blood of Christ.